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How raising the Medicare age could hurt young workers

If senior citizens can’t sign up for Medicare until age 67, many will likely stay on the job longer so they can keep their health insurance. That means it could be tougher for mid-career workers to move up, which in turn could make it harder for younger workers to secure entry-level positions, economists say.

“The only way to free up jobs at the bottom for young people is for older workers to retire,” said Sung Won Sohn, an economics professor at California State University Channel Islands. “No one wants to retire without health care.”

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With that logic lets LOWER IT to 30. That way people will retire at 30 and there will be LOTS of jobs for everyone. Not sure who is going to pay for it but as a great liberal once said “WHAT DIFFERENCE DOES IT MAKE?”

Like brewcrew, my mind reels at the stupidity of this article. sure, that’s the way to help young workers — make them pay to support more older people who aren’t working.

If you read the report of the economic committee that designed Soc Sec in the 1930s, their logic was very similar — need to pay old folks to get out of the work force to clear up job opportunities for younger people. Soc Sec in particular is designed to punish continued work by seniors — for every additional $1 they put in taxes into the program after the age of 60, they get back $0.02 in benefits. It and Medicare are designed to drive younger seniors out of the workforce — and in that they are very successful.

Of course, now we have nettlesome little problems like only two workers for every beneficiary within the next 20 years.

Smart domestic policy, not. Just like the frogs with thdir 35 hour workweek created jobs for more people, not! Just get out of the way and jobs will be made to meet rising demands. But to a lib everything is a static zero-sum problem that can only be redistributed by gov’t

Yet another iteration of the “there are only so many jobs” fallacy. If the older workers are more productive, then that actually creates more jobs for everyone else by just flat out increasing total productivity.

Yet another iteration of the “there are only so many jobs” fallacy. If the older workers are more productive, then that actually creates more jobs for everyone else by just flat out increasing total productivity.

Bingo. Liberals assume that, like wealth, the number of jobs is static and inflexible. More jobs mean more opportunity for all. But they can’t acknowledge that…there’s a narrative to reinforce.

Like brewcrew, my mind reels at the stupidity of this article. sure, that’s the way to help young workers — make them pay to support more older people who aren’t working.

If you read the report of the economic committee that designed Soc Sec in the 1930s, their logic was very similar — need to pay old folks to get out of the work force to clear up job opportunities for younger people. Soc Sec in particular is designed to punish continued work by seniors — for every additional $1 they put in taxes into the program after the age of 60, they get back $0.02 in benefits. It and Medicare are designed to drive younger seniors out of the workforce — and in that they are very successful.

Of course, now we have nettlesome little problems like only two workers for every beneficiary within the next 20 years.

Chuckles3 on January 24, 2013 at 7:18 PM

Years ago I read a short story in an issue of Science Analog where science had developed a way to restore humans physically to the prime of their lives. The first thing the author put in? Congress passed a law restricting the treatment to people who had already retired so that they didn’t push younger workers out of the economy. Even as a kid, that struck me as mind bogglingly backward.